


Days Gone Bye

by laceyalexandria



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: And I mean slow, Bisexual Rick Grimes, Episode: s01e01 Days Gone Bye, Explicit Language, F/M, M/M, Military Backstory, Multi, Protective Rick Grimes, Season 1 - Season 2, Slow Burn, Suspense, Top Rick Grimes, Walkers (Walking Dead), Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:02:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24549580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laceyalexandria/pseuds/laceyalexandria
Summary: At the end of the world, there are two stories to tell: those of redemption and those of desperation. Mike Nelson is a man looking for redemption even if he doesn't know it yet, and Jenny Janko is desperate to find a cure for the walkers that are taking over the world. Follows Season 1 of TWD - Season 2.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character, Rick Grimes & Original Female Character(s), Rick Grimes & Original Male Character(s), Shane Walsh & Original Male Character(s)
Kudos: 1





	Days Gone Bye

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Adele & Nora](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Adele+%26+Nora).



> Ahh, we have arrived at my passion project! This is a story I've been working very hard on. Only the prologue has ever seen the light of day so far. I have several chapters written but they won't be published here or on Wattpad until I'm done writing it. 
> 
> My Alpha and Beta readers from Wattpad (@holyatlas & @dol-guldur) deserve credit and thanks for helping me with editing. (:

**THE WORLD BURSTS** into light, filling her sight with a brightness that forces her eyes immediately shut to protect her sensitive vision. The sounds of panic and chaos fill her ears. People running, screaming, crying out for help. People fighting, dying, escaping the terror that awaited them should they fail to clear out in time. These sounds came in an overwhelming thunder, all at once and all overlapping in her conscious mind. The stench of copper-rich blood hung heavy in the air, the bitterness of it filling her nostrils.

She brings a hand to her temple. Her fingertips come away red with blood; source of the scent, slick as she rubbed the pads of her fingers together and stares in wonder.

There wasn't a single thought filling her mind at that moment. She simply exists amid the destruction and havoc, sitting up as best she could with a crumpled uniform and racing heart. She had no idea, at that moment, why people were screaming, but she knew she wanted them to stop. The uproar hurt her ears.

A man rushes past her, service boots slapping the concrete as he totes an M16 with the muzzle pointed towards the ground, strap slung carelessly over his shoulder. His breath came in heaves and rasps, he was pulling hard for air. She assumed he would pass her by without a second thought, but the man turns abruptly on his heel and reaches down for her. His eyes were blue and kind.

There was nothing to think about.

She grabs his hand.

He helps her to her feet while his eyes flicker to her chest, reading her name.

"Private Janko," his voice was deep, raspy with exhaustion. "Come with me."

The man led her— _Private Janko_ , she reminds herself, _that's who I am_ —across the base past uniformed men and women in varying states of distress. Their noise did not calm. She was regaining some of her mental functionality by now, remembering things her brain had momentarily forgotten while she rose from her previous state of unconsciousness; remembering what was happening and why there was so much blood in the air and underboot.

_People are eating other people,_ she remembers. _It's the end of time as we know it. And I'm in the middle of it. With a bleeding head._

The man's grip on her arm is tight. It was comforting, in a way, for her to know someone was holding onto her. The pressure on her arm reminded her they were in the smack-dab middle of shit. Real, serious shit. Shit that could go sideways in a matter of seconds if she wasn't on top of her game.

A feminine scream pierces the air.

He pulls on her arm harder, forcing her to pick up her pace as they make their way to the armory. She remembered the way. She was starting to get a clearer head with each passing second, and every jolt of the asphalt under her feet knocked more sense into her. This running jarred her teeth, making her head pound with irritation. She sorely wished they could slow down.

They dodged and weaved their way around the base, keeping the pace quick and slowing down for no one and nothing. Several others passed them on the way to the armory, heading in various directions: the mess hall, the barracks, the training floor. Everyone had a different objective in mind. There was little order to the chaos, little structure, or control. It seemed the base's leadership was entirely absent; these soldiers were left to panic whether they were an E5 or PFC. A man ranking lieutenant pushed past them, wild abandon in his eyes.

For a branch of the United States government that was based solely on control and practice and discipline, the thought of their ranks dissolving so easily scared her. They were supposed to be prepared for everything, weren't they? Military was meant to have a plan to fight back, to know exactly what to do and when to do it. That was how the movies always portrayed them. That was how civilians thought of them. That was how even some of the soldiers imagined things happening. But this? Not like this.

She was scared.

The man in front of her kicks the armory door open, raising his M16 while she closes the door behind them, engaging the electronic lock. It had been halfway open as the pair arrived, meaning somebody was possibly inside. Or something. She hoped it was empty.

While he cleared the vast room, she took a moment to catch her breath and assess herself. She rests her hands on her knees, half-bent over and in a position to look over her possible injuries. Her uniform, while slightly crumpled and dirty from the ground, was overall in good shape. Her boots were still tightly laced and polished. Her head still pounded and a small stream of blood trickled from her temple, but she wasn't any worse for wear for having been through such hell already. She glances at her watch.

It reads _1500_. How long had she been unconscious?

"CLEAR!" The man's voice echoes from the back of the room. He reappears a few moments later, watching as she stares at her wrist. He came closer to her then, the name on his uniform becoming clearer.

_Sergeant E. Smith._

"We need to gear up and go to the communications tower," Smith says as he moves along the racks on the walls, eyeing the weapons hanging there. She notices the arsenal as though for the first time, taking in the collection before them. There were M16s, M4s, pistols, 12-gauge shotguns, sniper rifles, ammo canisters, canteens, compasses, knives, and grenades on display all across the room. There were a few missing from the walls, weapons which were taken in haste, but for the most part, the armory was well-stocked. Barely touched.

"Why?" She was confused, unable to recall her name for a few moments.

_Jenny,_ she chants in her head. _Jenny, Jenny, Jenny. My name is Jenny._

Smith glances over his shoulder. "How hard did you hit your head, Janko?"

"I don't know," Jenny admits. She approaches the wall, bringing down an M4 to sling across her back. Its familiar weight brought her a small measure of comfort. "I don't even know how long I was out. What happened?"

"The infected got inside the base," he explains in a softer tone, moving to restock on his own ammo. Smith grabs extra magazines to slide inside his pockets. He won't look at her for a moment. "At approximately zero-nine hundred hours, two infected breached the walls from an unknown location and they worked their way into the mess hall. Several unaware soldiers later, and that's when everything went to shit. Nobody was prepared. Not for something like this."

Jenny straps a wicked-looking combat knife to her boot. "Damn."

"Do you know how you hit your head?" Smith asks quizzically.

She scours her mind, trying hard to recall the details. Everything was fuzzy. She could remember her battle buddy, Viers, and a sense of alarm, but nothing after that. "I... think it was the butt of a gun? I can't really remember. I feel like I'm gonna be sick. I was with Private Viers, have you seen him?"

"No."

Sergeant Smith suddenly approaches Jenny, bringing his flashlight up above her head to shine the little beam of light down at her eyes. The light was just as blinding as the sun when she returned to consciousness, but the beam was small and he held it at an angle to avoid hurting her eyes. Kindness in a small measure, she thought.

After a few moments of examination, Smith clicks the flashlight off and places it back in his cargo pocket. "You have a concussion," he announces, "But you'll be fine. Everything should make a little more sense after a good night's rest, although I'm not sure where you're going to get that among all of this. We have to get to the communications tower, after all. We need to make contact with Lieutenant O'Sullivan, he'll give us our assignment."

"Yeah, sure." Jenny nods and singles out a canteen filled with water, not quite sure what to make of O'Sullivan assigning jobs during a crisis like this. What would she and Smith even do? She ignores the thought and places the canteen carefully within one of the large pockets at her thigh, right next to her own flashlight and the flat cap with her surname stitched across the back.

"Hey, um," Jenny pauses, realizing that there's something else on her mind entirely. She wouldn't be able to complain if it hadn't been for Smith. She owed him. "Thanks for coming back for me, Sergeant."

Smith adjusts his grip on the M16 in his hands and shifts his weight from foot to foot, a new look of sheepishness consuming his handsome features. His dark eyebrows are drawn closer together and the wrinkles on his forehead deepen. "Not supposed to go anywhere without your battle buddy, remember, Private? We were both alone. Seemed fitting."

"Right..." she muses, silently suspecting that there was more to his reasoning than that. Sergeant Smith could have easily passed her by or left her in her dazed state. The infected could've feasted on her if he hadn't grabbed her arm and practically dragged her halfway across the military base. As far as Jenny was concerned, she really did owe Sergeant Smith her life. And that was a debt she was keen on repaying in any way possible. If that meant getting them safely to the communications tower, then Jenny knew what had to get done.

"Are you ready, Private?"

Jenny reaches over to grab more ammo from the open canisters and begins loading it into empty magazines, which she then shoves into her pockets after they grow heavier. It's good to have a surplus of ammo. "Almost," she replies, "What's the E stand for?"

Smith pauses. "What?"

" _'Sergeant E. Smith',_ " Jenny quotes, nodding to the front of his neatly-kept uniform. A stray blonde hair fell over her forehead. She wanted to know the name of the man who kept himself this orderly even in the face of danger, and who had managed to save her life. "E for Eric? E for Esteban? E for Eli? What's your name?"

He was quiet for so long that Jenny wasn't sure he would provide an answer at all. But after a few minutes, his voice cuts through the silence.

"Everett."

_Everett Smith,_ Jenny tests the name in her head. It worked.

"And the J?" Everett inquires. "J for Jennifer? Julia? Joanna?"

Jenny feels a smile pull at the edges of her lips. "Jacklyn, actually," she turns to him and slaps a magazine in the waiting chamber of the M4. "But I prefer Jenny. I hate the name Jacklyn, it sounds like I'm the estranged forty-year-old lesbian 'Auntie Jackie' at a kid's birthday party."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-eight." Jenny narrows her eyes playfully. "Not that it matters, anyway."

Everett cracks a shit-eating grin. "And are you a lesbian?"

"Those aren't my tastes if that's what you're asking, Sergeant."

"Then I'm sure you've got nothing to worry about." Everett's easy manner fades away in a matter of seconds when a scream comes from just outside the armory doors. With it came growls and snarls of the infected, inhuman howling taking chorus in the ears of every man and woman within miles of the spot as whoever it was outside was brutally torn apart. The atmosphere was suddenly much darker than before. "We should get moving, Private."

The exchange of names felt right to Jenny. In a sense, it was a way to sow your memory into another person. Even if you died or fell from immediate thought, your name was still carried with them. They would still think of you from time to time, they would wonder at your fate if you parted ways, or mourn you if you died. Knowing Everett's name was her way of keeping his memory with her, even if he died.

She pondered this briefly but eventually forces a nod. They had to keep moving.

"Lead the way, Sergeant."


End file.
